


O'er Land and Bead

by Lightbulbs



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Book 03: Oathbringer Spoilers, Canon Speculation, Character Study, Don't copy to another site, Gen, POV Outsider, Shadesmar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 04:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19310617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightbulbs/pseuds/Lightbulbs
Summary: "Ico has seen odd things in his time. Captaining a vessel in Shadesmar makes oddities routine. But chartering a Radiant? In this day and age?"A Reacher considers his strange passengers as they make their way to Celebrant.[Set mid-Oathbringer]





	O'er Land and Bead

Ico has seen odd things in his time. Captaining a vessel in Shadesmar makes oddities routine. But chartering a _Radiant_? In this day and age?

In some deep, hidden part of himself, he’s intrigued. Reachers like novelty; he’s no exception. It’s their nature, like how honorspren find solace in oaths, or Cryptics in half-truths. What does this new age of Radiance signify?

_This does not bode well._

_..._

A short-haired woman stands before him, dressed in a fine breastplate and a soldier’s attire. Her face is marred by scars, but he senses something about her, some otherness that he associates with shadows or divinity.

“We need passage,” she says. She speaks with the ease of someone familiar with the subastral, though she’s not particularly happy about it.

He glances at Riino, the lighthouse keeper. The old Elantrian says nothing, obviously considering his duty at connecting the travelers and Captain Ico’s ship complete. He sorts through a handful of half-lit spheres.

Ico sighs, then looks back at the woman. “You have payment?”

“Yes.” She hands him a bolt of cloth, tan threaded with brown. Ico inspects the weave. It’s sturdy, thick enough to weather the hardscrabble life of a sailor.

He nods to her, glancing at the rest of her group. A tall, dark-haired man with a terse expression. Another man, hair shimmering gold and black. Two women, one dark and one pale. A Cryptic, tall and inscrutable in his heavy robe. And… a deadeye?

Ico’s heart feels heavy. He keeps careful guard of his expression.

“You may ride with us to Celebrant,” he says.

_..._

The pale, freckled woman has bonded with a Cryptic. For that, Ico is wary. What sort of human would go along with a Cryptic’s wanderings?

What sort of spren would consider such a bond?

For a moment, Ico thinks of his daughter, leaving a good job at the moneychangers. _Stupid girl._ He pushes the thought aside, staring at the woman.

Her hands are always moving, roaming over her sketchbook as if they were being pulled along by windspren. She’s intensely curious, which Ico can appreciate, even if her incessant questions are bothersome.

“She’s a nuisance, captain,” says one of youngest crewmembers.

Ico smiles wryly. “She’s human,” he replies.

Still, it’s not her humanity that draws attention. It’s her spren. Cryptics are a strange lot. While Ico doesn’t have a personal grudge against them, he dislikes how they twist situations to their own ends.

The bonded Cryptic wanders around deck, humming quietly to himself. Most of Ico’s crew shy away from him, unnerved.

There’s a sense of unease that travels the copper inlays of the ship every time the Cryptic passes by. Given how most liespren prefer to remain in their own labyrinthine city, it’s little wonder how few Reachers have interacted with them. Even Ico catches himself staring at the endless, twisting shapes of the spren’s faceless head.

The woman pulls back from the railing where she’d been staring at the Mandras at the bow of the ship, watching their smooth undulations and the beat of their many wings. Her red hair whips around her as she walks over to her bonded spren. She leans in to chat with him.

Ico is too far away to hear their conversation, although he thinks he can make out a low buzz. She flushes, then slaps the Cryptic lightly on the shoulder. The gesture is one of friendly intimacy.

_It’s funny_ , Ico thinks, _that the woman should be called a Lightweaver, rather than a Lieweaver._

He wonders if the order was named out of attempted cleverness. For all that Cryptics extol the virtue of truth, they’re awfully concerned with what could be, rather than what _is_.

_..._

The dark-haired man is dimming. As a lightspren, Ico sees more than just outward wavelengths of hue and brightness. He sees an inner light as well, a separate illumination altogether.

And the man, as the human Rosharians would say, is growing dun.

He had been genial enough as Ico had explained how to extract water from the soul of ice. Ico doesn’t expect much from a human, so the man’s initial rudeness is easy to push aside.

But Ico watches him afterward, sees the way he interacts with others in his group. There is an initial flare of joy when he speaks to the woman with fiery hair, handing her some water. That flare settles back into a half-lit state after she leaves.

Ico sees that the man has a Nahel bond. The bond hadn’t been obvious at first, but Ico had noticed the spren-like energy emanating from the dark-skinned woman and… well. A Lightweaver likes to tell lies.

In sensing this, Ico felt a cold twist of dread. The deadeye was bad enough. Learning of two Radiants, two oath-breakers, being among his passengers was worse still.

Still, who is he to halt passage? The Sea of Lost Lights belongs to everyone.

The man sits on deck now, long legs dangling over the edge. It’s the posture of someone unafraid of death. Perhaps even welcoming it, however buried that feeling might be.

The man’s bonded spren watches him, quietly.

_..._

“You look like an honorspren going to a Feast of Light,” Ico says.

The man with the blond-and-black hair smiles and studies his reflection.

Ico had offered the man an old jacket, per his request, wondering what he’d do with it. Turns out, the man is a tailor. The deep burgundy of the old jacket, now a waistcoat, pairs with the man’s outfit in an almost effortless way.

Ico studies him. “You were a ruler among your kind, weren’t you?” he says.

The man starts at this, then gets a faraway look on his face. His light, once so blinding, gutters out for a moment. There are hidden depths to this man, ones that he tries not to show. A public face, and a private one.

_How like a human._

After a pause, the light returns, and the man draws himself up. He brushes off Ico’s comments, and the two chat idly about oaths and kingship. Ico finds the conversation diverting enough, laughing a bit at the man’s naivete.

Then the man brings up the deadeye, the one that follows him with mindless intention. A cultivationspren of winding vines and spiky crystals, pruned back to a husk.

Ico feels a rush of temper, though his bronze skin doesn’t flush. He asks the man how he sees the poor wretch, the deadeye standing dully in the hold below. The man claims to be the deadeye’s _friend_.

The man wants to believe that he’s a good person, that he wouldn’t disrespect the dead. That he isn’t like the Radiants before, men who would doom their bonded spren to a fate worse than human death.

Ico isn’t surprised. At his gentle rebuke, the man’s regalness fades. “Rudeness doesn’t necessarily imply untruth,” Ico says, an echo of the man’s own words.

He knows the truth. The man’s inner light may blind, but his heart seeks darkness.

_..._

They pull into Celebrant, and Ico says his goodbyes. They weren’t a bad group of passengers, but he’s glad to see them go. They remind him of dark days.

“Captain,” says his first mate, a tall Reacher with a hooked nose, “inspections will start soon.”

“Already?”

“Aye.” His first mate looks nervous. “There’s something strange going on. Not just in Celebrant, but with that group—”

“Just prepare the deck,” says Ico, cutting him off.

His first mate snaps to attention, nods, and goes to gather the crew. Ico doesn’t follow. Instead, he heads downstairs.

The gate swings open easily, and Ico doesn’t bother to close it as he walks inside the hold. A shadowy figure stands at the far wall, bronze skin a dark copper in the low light.

“Hello, Father,” says Ico.

His father doesn’t respond; he never does. His body in the Physical Realm must be somewhere in Thaylen City. There’s an eerie stillness to his posture, and for all that humans compare Reachers to statues, Ico can see it in his father now. Even his eyes, scooped hollow, look like basins awaiting a sculptor’s deft touch.

“I know you don’t hear me,” Ico says. “Lightspren aren’t like Cryptics, given to lies.” He pauses. “And yet…”

He pauses. His father doesn’t move.

“And yet,” he says, “something is happening. Changes. Voidspren wander the lands, and Odium’s servants survey shipping routes.” Another pause. “We had two Radiants aboard. And perhaps a minor god. Powers are gathering, for better or worse.”

He leans in, whispering. Why does he whisper? Ico isn’t sure. “There was something about that deadeye. The cultivationspren.” He looks up, as if he can see through the ship to the blue building of the dock registrar, at the group looking for passage on an ill wind.

“Maybe…” he says, “Maybe you can—”

“Captain?” echoes a muffled voice.

There’s a clomping sound overhead, heavy boots on sturdy wood. A crewmember is looking for him.

“Goodbye, Father,” Ico says, stepping out from the hold. The door doesn’t seem to want to lock, but he fights with the mechanism until it clicks shut.

Ico readies himself for long, uncertain travels.

**Author's Note:**

> During my last Oathbringer reread, I kept thinking of Captain Ico, who must have been feeling awfully conflicted about Kaladin and crew. Chartering Radiants, after his own father became a deadeye? Turmoil on the seas?
> 
> Lightspren details are 100% speculation, but given Venli's bonded spren and what's known of the Willshapers, it would make sense for them to be an innately curious bunch.


End file.
